Page 136 of Love Thy Brother
I need him.I reached back, and he was right there, his hand twining with mine, his big arm snaking around my waist, lips brushing my temple.
“You wanna go home?”
“My home?”
“Wherever you are, baby. That’s all I meant.”
I felt that too. But as much as responsibility called me back to Porth Luck, Rubi’s big rumpled bed was the only place I wanted to be. “Can we go to your house?”
A broad grin split Rubi’s face. “Really?”
“You think I’d lie?”
“No—I just wasn’t sure if you’d still want to be around me so much now this county lines shit is sorted. Figured I’d have to fight you about Timmerson still being a threat.”
I dug my knuckles into his ribs. “I’m not asking you to guard me, you fucking buffoon. I want to go back to your house and fuck. Then I want dinner—breakfast—whatever. And to sleep with you. None of that has anything to do with anyone else.”
Rubi let out a shaky breath, nodding slowly. Then something across the yard caught his eye.
Someone.
Alexei was back.
Rubi squeezed my hand, then left me, jogging across the yard to where Alexei crouched by Cam and Saint’s hogs, examining the wheels.
He rose as Rubi reached him. Glaring. Unimpressed at whatever Rubi had to say.
I was nosey enough that I drifted across the yard to insert myself into a conversation that was none of my damn business in time for Alexei’s deep sigh.
“Old one, we’ve talked about this. No hugging unless someone dies.”
“Ah, but you didn’t say who. According to statistics, six people have died while I’ve been standing here.” Rubi opened his arms. “Come on, bro. Let it happen.”
Okay. That wasn’t the tea I thought I was walking up on, but it fascinated me all the same. Rubi was tactile with everyone he loved, and even people he didn’t. Alexei showed his affection in other ways, though I’d seen him hug Cam. Hold Saint’s hand. Cuddle Decoy and Mateo’s sweet little girls. Maybe it was in him and he just didn’t know it.
Either way, Rubi was hard to dissuade when he wanted something.
Alexei sighed again. “Do it if you must. But the sooner you go back to pestering Nash for unsolicited affection, the better.”
Rubi didn’t answer. Just wrapped his arms around Alexei with too much feeling to match the hilarity in the exchange that had come before. Too much simmering emotion. Whether Alexei felt it, I couldn’t tell. But he didn’t fight Rubi. For a hot second, he even hugged him back, before he broke away with a droll frown.
“You are okay?”
Rubi nodded.
“And you?” Alexei swung his sharp gaze to me.
I nodded too. Alexei stared me down for a moment, his disbelief harsher than Nash’s. But it wasn’t us that owned his heart, and he let us go, disappearing into the shadows to boss my brother around.
A shiver rocked me when he was gone. “He freaks me out.”
Rubi returned to my orbit and dumped his chin on my shoulder from behind. “Yeah, but it’s the good kind of freak out. I love that tapped little dude.”
“Everyone’s little compared to you.”
“Hardy ha. Let’s go.”
Rubi hustled me to our bikes. I swung my leg over mine as the clubhouse door opened and Nash appeared on the steps, rubbing the side of his face that wasn’t stitched up. He looked tired. Lonely.
